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[Immortal-D]

I created a pasture on z-2, threw down some Nest Boxes, and forbade the door.  Boxes were claimed by the Crabs, and there they stayed for a year before I removed them to try again.  Am I missing something, or did I manage to get the 1 in a million sterile and/or gay male Crab? :/

[___MeRliN___]

Not sure if I got that right, let me check real quick... yeah their "eggs" seem to be nothing but Flux Stone if I got that right. From what I know they grow extremly slowly anyways, kinda like those Rock Lobsters from dont starve.

Therefor I am not even certain if they reproduce at all...

[LMeire]

MW doesn't have gay/asexual creatures yet, since that's a .40 thing and it hasn't been updated past DF12. This is going to sound stupid, but are there actually any eggs in the nestboxes? Most of the time boulder crabs just lay a dolomite boulder, and they won't lay anything more until you clear the nest again. (In fact I've never seen them lay eggs at all, though Meph claims they should.)

[Immortal-D]

Ya know come to think of it, I never have seen any eggs.  They just claim the Box and sit there :/  Welp, looks like I'm going back to Craigtooth Boars, though I don't think they are 100% either.  Shear seems to work, but, I could never figure if their tusks are classified as teeth, horns, etc. for decorations or armor studs.  On the plus side, Leatherwing Bats are wonderful   They hunt vermin effectively as Cats or Frill Lizards, and shearing does work on them for early leather industry.  Guess I'll be updating my story info (completely shameless plug )

[zach123b]

from my experience it's 2 months for most things to hatch, make sure you have a male before they lay or the eggs wont hatch
i usually dump the eggs if its been more than a year but i believe they should still hatch but i'm unsure

[Immortal-D]

from my experience it's 2 months for most things to hatch, make sure you have a male before they lay or the eggs wont hatch
i usually dump the eggs if its been more than a year but i believe they should still hatch but i'm unsure

So you have actually seen Boulder Crab eggs?  I definitely have a breeding pair;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[slay_mithos]

I guess it's easy to know if they have eggs or not, via the stockpiles.

If you go to the stockpile that accepts your eggs, go through that list and disable the boulder crab's entry if it's in there.

Have the normal rocks removed from the nest, and check on it every now and then.

I guess if you are running a kitchen non-stop, it might interfere though, and without one of the eggs, you can't say to not cook them...

[heydude6]

after you're done that, please tell us whether or not boulder crabs actually have eggs (appears on the stockpile menu), this question has been bothering me ever since I started MDF.

[slay_mithos]

Well, mine were the only "egg" layers and even after multiple years, no sign of any egg, but it doesn't mean much.

I mean, my food-to-process stockpile didn't accept eggs, but it doesn't prevent the cook from going to the nest and taking the egg stack, and one meal with egg among hundreds, that might have been eaten is pretty hard to find.

[heydude6]

usually, what I do is lock the boulder crabs in a room and after they lay eggs I check it. If it's a boulder I unforbid the door and it's then it's collected, if it's a real egg I would have left the door locked till it hatches. Of course I haven't received any real eggs yet.

[Splint]

Ya know come to think of it, I never have seen any eggs.  They just claim the Box and sit there :/  Welp, looks like I'm going back to Craigtooth Boars, though I don't think they are 100% either.  Shear seems to work, but, I could never figure if their tusks are classified as teeth, horns, etc.

Ivory if I remember right. You'll need a pretty hefty number of them to have bone carvers and shearers working round the clock year round.

[Immortal-D]

I kept close watch over my Crabs, and the Nest Boxes never filled with anything   I'm afraid this animal is a bust until further notice.

Ya know come to think of it, I never have seen any eggs.  They just claim the Box and sit there :/  Welp, looks like I'm going back to Craigtooth Boars, though I don't think they are 100% either.  Shear seems to work, but, I could never figure if their tusks are classified as teeth, horns, etc.

Ivory if I remember right. You'll need a pretty hefty number of them to have bone carvers and shearers working round the clock year round.

Ah, that makes sense.  Guess the Tusks aren't much good for weapons, but Ivory decorations would add considerable value to furniture and crafts.  Plus if I recall correctly, a fully grown Craigtooth yields ~100 meat.  Still a shame about the Crabs though.

[heydude6]

Anyway, I have finally decided to take action against this issue.

For anyone who want's boulder crabs to lay eggs again, I bring you my modding skills. So "how do you fix this?" you may ask. Well first you must open your masterwork folder, then click the Dwarf fortress folder, then click the raw folder,  then click the objects folder, then you will be bombarded by a bunch of txt files. Go to the one named creature_pet_masterwork then you will have the raws for the boulder crab. The first thing you want to do there is look for this section of text

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CASTE:FEMALE]
[CASTE_NAME:female boulder crab:female boulder crabs:boulder crab]
[FEMALE]
[LAYS_EGGS]
[EGG_MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:EGGSHELL:SOLID]
[EGG_MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:EGG_WHITE:LIQUID]
[EGG_MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:EGG_YOLK:LIQUID]
[LAYS_UNUSUAL_EGGS:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:LIMESTONE]
[LAYS_UNUSUAL_EGGS:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:MARBLE]
[LAYS_UNUSUAL_EGGS:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:DOLOMITE]
[EGG_SIZE:37]
[CLUTCH_SIZE:1:2]
[CASTE:MALE]
[CASTE_NAME:boulder crab:boulder crabs:boulder crab]
[MALE]


Now change it to this

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CASTE:FEMALE]
[CASTE_NAME:female boulder crab:female boulder crabs:boulder crab]
[FEMALE]
[LAYS_EGGS]
[EGG_MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:EGGSHELL:SOLID]
[EGG_MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:EGG_WHITE:LIQUID]
[EGG_MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:EGG_YOLK:LIQUID]

[EGG_SIZE:37]
[CLUTCH_SIZE:1:2]
[CASTE:MALE]
[CASTE_NAME:boulder crab:boulder crabs:boulder crab]
[MALE]
[LAYS_UNUSUAL_EGGS:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:LIMESTONE]
[LAYS_UNUSUAL_EGGS:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:MARBLE]
[LAYS_UNUSUAL_EGGS:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:DOLOMITE]
[EGG_SIZE:37]
[CLUTCH_SIZE:1:2]

So what you just did is make it so that females lay real eggs, while males lay boulders. I hope this solves all of your problems. Maybe implement this in all future masterwork releases?

[smakemupagus]

tested?  it's a clever solution but i would have thought males won't lay eggs.

[Immortal-D]

Oh very cool.  I will test this out next time I play (actually late for my RPG group as I type this, lol).  If it works though, you may very well have saved Irdoren